


take a deep breath and live

by aesphantasmal



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Other, Tw amputation, and then got shoved into a bag, at least I consider it as such, nureyev is an awful patient, pretty fun time for him it doesn't seem, so nureyev had a leg broken in three places, warning for a couple of somewhat gory descriptions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-15
Updated: 2020-05-15
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:59:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24193204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aesphantasmal/pseuds/aesphantasmal
Summary: “Well, I’m not going to lie, Ransom, it doesn’t look good.”“Yes, I don’t exactly have your expert eye, but I’d have made the same assessment.”
Relationships: Peter Nureyev/Juno Steel
Comments: 26
Kudos: 132





	take a deep breath and live

**Author's Note:**

> based off of some convos on twitter regarding nureyevs broken leg at the end of last ep

Nureyev was sedated, again.

It was a familiar feeling, by now. When was the last time he hadn't been sedated? Days ago? He barely remembered anything past the theft of the Blade, with the exception of the few times the excruciating pain had managed to cut through the haze, though it had hardly given him the opportunity to gauge his surroundings.

There was only a dull pain, this time, as he began to come to. His eyelids were still heavy, and he felt as if his body was weighed down with lead as much as he was aware of it at all. The first thing that registered in his foggy mind was the smell. A sharp scent — it took a few seconds for his mind to register "disinfectant". The fabric of whatever he was lying on was scratchy, and, as he found when he moved his hand further from his body, not very big.

There was something lying on top of him too, heavier material, thicker, somewhat… strangely shaped for something being used as a blanket. There's no sound besides the low hum of an engine. No voices, no footsteps. Is he alone? 

He managed, finally, to pry his eyes open. The room was dark, with only the smallest sliver of light creeping in under the door. The room was tiny — the makeshift bed he was in had been put at something of an angle just to fit it in, and there barely seemed to be enough floor space for a person to stand next to the bed. There were several boxes with various bottles and tools and medical dressings on top of them.

Slowly, carefully, Nureyev sat up, pulling whatever it was that had been laid on top of him onto his lap. As soon as he did so, he noticed it was far colder than any kind of comfortable ambient temperature most ships were kept at, although he faintly registered that he seemed to be sweating. He held up the thing that had been lying on it, and, as he grabbed a sleeve, realised it was a coat —  _ Juno's  _ coat, he knew, looking at the places where it had been damaged and repaired over and over. He pulled it on, careful not to make a sound or knock into anything on top of the boxes. Juno was shorter than him — the sleeves stopped not much past his elbow — but Nureyev was thinner, so he was able to fit into it easily enough. He looked around at the tools, looking for a scalpel or anything else of the like that he could use. He was reaching for something when he felt something in the coat sleeve pressing into his elbow as he bent it. He reached inside the sleeve, pulled at the loose stitches he found, and extracted the object. As soon as he held it up to the light, he knew what it was — a small, cheap plasma cutter. But it was adequate for what he needed. He swung one of his legs off of the bed, then went to move the other one when he noticed it.

He couldn't feel his lower leg.

_ Just painkillers,  _ he told himself, biting down the sudden wave of panic.  _ Localised anaesthesia. Inconvenient for now, but it'll wear off.  _ He swung that leg off the bed too, and stood up.

As soon as he put the slightest bit of weight on his leg, he almost screamed in pain. It felt like a million shards of glass digging into his leg, scraping at the bone and tearing his flesh to shreds. He fell backwards onto the bed and held his breath, frozen as still as he could manage, straining his ears to see if there were any approaching footsteps, if anyone had heard the noise he wasn't sure of he'd made. Once he was certain nobody was coming, he took a deep breath, and looked around the room for anything he could use as support. It was far from ideal for stealth, limited his mobility, and only gave him one hand to fight with, but he was in an unknown room in an unknown place with no idea what or who might be beyond the door. He couldn't risk collapsing. It took a few minutes of straining his eyes against the darkness — he hadn't noticed with the general slowness and disorientation from the sedative, but his glasses were missing — to notice the crutches against the opposite wall. The room was small enough that he only had to lean over to grab one. He pushed himself fully to his feet, still feeling the pain over the numbness, but he gritted his teeth and opened the door as quietly as he could.

It took a few seconds to adjust to the much brighter light in here, after the darkness of the room. He could tell just from this corridor that this ship must be significantly smaller than the Carte Blanche. Not many places to hide. To the left, the corridor seemed to be a dead end. To the right, a door with a turn in the corridor to the side that most likely was to the airlock, if his estimate about the size of the ship was correct. But he couldn't stay exposed in the main corridor, so he turned right and walked down the corridor, cringing at the noise every time the crutch hit the floor. As he approached the door at the end of the corridor, he heard voices.

“We should arrive at Eris within the week. What we do from there… depends on what the situation is,” he heard Buddy say. “Regardless of any other factors, we’re going to need to find a new ship. Ideally before the strain of lack of personal space sets in more than it already has.”

“We are going to need to avoid drawing attention to ourselves,” Jet said.

“Yes. Hopefully Dark Matters won’t be able to track us to Eris, so if we need to, we may be able to lay low there for a while. And if we stay in the Outer Rim, they’ll have more difficulty following us.”

“Don’t think being outside of their jurisdiction is going to stop them, Bud,” Vesps said.

“I don’t either, but it should at the very least not make things easier for them..”

“We need to be ready if they’ve followed us, is all I’m saying.”

“We will be, Vespa.”

“What about Mista Ransom?” Rita asked. Nureyev held his breath. Knowing that the rest of the crew were there only calmed him down slightly, and he felt no particular desire to talk to them in his current state. But he wanted to know what the crew said was happening with him, so he stayed put and kept listening.

“What about him?” Juno said.

“He’s not going to get better with a few days’ rest, Steel,” Vespa said. “I’ll see how bad it is once he’s awake and we can move him out of the closet we shoved him in.”

“But we’re going to have to prepare for the worst?”

“I mean, he’s not gonna die unless he does something very stupid, but I wouldn’t get your hopes up for much more than that.”

“I’m gonna go and check on him,” Juno said, and before Nureyev could react, the door opened. 

Juno looked exhausted. He had dark shadows under his eyes, his hair was a mess and his clothes were rumpled like he’d been sleeping in them. “N — Ransom! Why are you out of —”

From back in the room Juno had just left, Nureyev heard Vespa swear.

* * *

“Well, I’m not going to lie, Ransom, it doesn’t look  _ good. _ ”

“Yes, I don’t exactly have your expert eye, but I’d have made the same assessment.”

Vespa had forced Nureyev to sit down in the makeshift kitchen/lounge, and retrieved her equipment from the tiny room he had woken up in, saying she had needed more space to do the examination she wanted to. She had laid him back on the bed he had woken up on, and had peeled back the bandages on his injured leg. Nureyev wasn’t exactly one to feel queasy, but he didn’t exactly want to look at it for longer than he had to.

Nureyev wasn’t an idiot. He knew what would probably have to happen. He’d seen it a few times — people on Brahma who had been lucky enough to escape the lasers alive but still had serious damage to their limbs, people injured in heists gone wrong or in explosions.

“How long was I out? How long ago did we steal the Blade?”

“Three days ago, but it wasn’t anywhere near this bad after we stole the Blade.”

“I’ll admit to not having much memory of what happened after that.”

Vespa explained what had happened as she took various measurements and cleaned his wounds as best she could, trying to get a better look at the state of his leg. He could see multiple places where bone had broken the skin, and he could feel a gnawing sense of dread in the pit of his stomach. Vespa kept looking over it, but Nureyev could tell from the look on her face what she was thinking.

"From what I can tell you're probably in the early stages of some kind of infection. We don't exactly have the tools here to know exactly what it is, but it's probably bacterial as far as I can tell. Luckily for you, we have some antibiotics."

"I sense there's a 'but' coming."

" _ But _ if we leave your leg like this it's just going to get infected again, and besides, I'm not sure we could steal a hundredth of the creds you'd need to fix this properly with Dark Matters up our asses, and we'd need to go to a specialist, and who knows where the nearest one is." Nureyev wanted to come out and say what he knew was true, but he couldn't force it out of his throat. He needed to hear Vespa say it. So he let her continue. "Obviously it's not going to be  _ pretty _ , but if we don't amputate it now, you're just going to be more at risk."

Nureyev could tell, from the slightly less harsh tone, that she was trying to soften the blow, in her own way. And it wasn't as if he hadn't known what she was going to say. But that didn't make hearing it any easier.

"I know." He took a deep breath. "Well, it's hardly much of a choice, is it?"

"Oh, I wasn't planning on just letting you die. You agreeing just makes my life easier." 

"Can I talk to…" He trailed off. His head said he needed to talk to Buddy. His heart said he needed to talk to Juno. 

"I need time to get ready. Talk to whoever you want." He went to stand up, and she immediately gave him a look that could kill. "No. Stay there." She gave a sigh of frustration. "Who do you want to talk to?"

He considered for a second. Thought through his priorities. He  _ wanted _ to talk to Juno — but he also knew depending on what Buddy said, he might need Juno's help.

"Buddy, please," he said. Vespa looked surprised for a second, then left the room and returned seconds later with Buddy. She sat down on the sofa opposite him, while Vespa went into the corner to make her preparations.

"I'm sorry, Captain. Under the circumstances, I'm afraid I may be out of action for a while."

"Yes, Vespa filled me in. Deep breaths, Pete."

He hadn't realised quite how shallow and shaky his breathing had become until Buddy pointed it out. He took a deep breath, the stale air of the poorly ventilated ship filling his lungs, then continued. "If it's acceptable to you, I'd like to return to working with the crew once I've recovered enough to be of use, though I may never quite return to my previous standard of —"

"— Peter." The look in Buddy's eyes was serious, but not angry or cold. "We are a family, and I don't think I could claim that if I had any intention of leaving you to go through the recovery period for this on your own."

"What?"

"You were injured on a family heist, and then again when the family was attacked. And those connections are not and cannot be allowed to be solely based on who is useful to who, even if you might see it that way."

"I don't."  _ Anymore.  _ "But with Dark Matters potentially in pursuit —"

"All the more reason not to abandon you. Splitting the family in half at this time doesn't seem like the best idea right now. They split us up and picked us off one by one last time, no need to make it easier for them."

"What do you mean, in half?"

"Juno isn't going to leave you like this. I doubt Rita would for her own reasons, but she also won't leave Juno."

"I suppose."

"If you want to discuss it with Juno, I can find him for you. But all I can ask is for you to have some faith in us."

Nureyev nodded. He still wasn't sure he wanted to place his safety in the hands of anyone else, but he hardly had a wide range of options.

"Unless you believe we have more to discuss, I would appreciate it if you could find Juno." Buddy nodded, and left. A minute later, Juno entered.

"Hey." Juno sat down next to him, and Nureyev could tell from his face that he already knew what was going on.

"Hello," Nureyev replied. Juno took his hand, and Nureyev held on tight.

"I just want you to know I'll be here no matter what, Nureyev. I'm not gonna leave again."

"I believe you." He tried to inject as much sincerity into the response as he could, trying all he could to make sure Juno knew he did genuinely believe him. Juno leaned over and kissed him softly, careful not to hurt him. Nureyev pulled him as close as he dared.

_ "Ahem _ . _ "  _ Vespa gave the most pointed throat-clearing cough Nureyev had ever heard, and him and Juno split apart. Juno continued to mutter reassurances, the meaning lying less in the words themselves and more on the act of saying them.

As Vespa finished her preparations, Juno gave Nureyev one last kiss, whispered a "Love you," and left.

"Not that you need my opinion, Ransom, but I don't think a crew with two people missing an eye and with me is exactly going to become completely useless because you lost half your leg. Just don't try and do anything stupid just to prove you can, manage your expectations and don't make things more difficult for the rest of us unless you need to." Nureyev looked at her in surprise. He hadn't expected an attempt at reassurance from her, in her own way, but it wasn't unappreciated.

The next few minutes passed almost in a blur. Vespa was explaining exactly what would happen in a way that suggested she'd given this speech several times before. Then he was being sedated again, trying to cling onto those last few seconds before everything went dark in his memory.

* * *

He didn't wake up alone this time.

As he came back to his senses, he could hear voices. One was right next to him, and he could feel the familiar pressure of Juno's hand holding his. The other voice was further away, though from the volume and pitch Nureyev could tell exactly who it was.

"Mista Steel, you gotta get some rest! Miss Vespa said Mista Ransom'll be fine!"

"She also said he's going to be waking up soon. I'll go to sleep once I've talked to him, ok?"

"You better!" Then there were footsteps, followed by the sound of the door opening and closing.

Nureyev waited a few more seconds before opening his eyes. He wasn't in pain, not more than the standard aches and pains of his ageing body, but even without opening his eyes, there was a distinct strangeness to how he felt lying there. 

He took a deep breath. Rita had said Vespa had said he was going to be fine — or, at least, as fine as he could be given the circumstances. And pretending he wasn't awake wasn't going to change anything. So, he opened his eyes.

Juno had looked exhausted before. Now, he looked ready to keel over given half a second. His eyes were drifting shut as he sat next to Nureyev.

"Hello, Juno," Nureyev said. Juno opened his eyes suddenly. like he hadn't realised he was falling asleep in his chair until Nureyev had spoken.

"Hey, Nureyev." Juno's smile was soft, and just seeing it put Nureyev at ease. He could look at that smile for days on end. But, against his own wishes, he tore his eyes away from Juno to look at his leg.

There was nothing horrible, nothing that turned his stomach like seeing his leg before had. Just a stump, a little below the knee. It looked odd, like looking at a picture you know should be a certain way and finding it to be different in unexpected ways. (Like how it had felt looking at Juno's face after he lost his eye and before Nureyev had become used to the eye patch, though he would prefer not to dwell on that.) 

Juno was running his thumb over Nureyev's hand as he held it. The repetitive motion was comforting. "How do you feel?" Juno asked, eventually.

"...Better," Nureyev replied after some consideration. "A little shaky, perhaps."

"Vespa said to take these," Juno said, handing him a glass of water and some pills. "Antibiotics and some other stuff — I'll be honest, I wasn't really listening." Juno tried to stifle a yawn. "Anyway, I should probably sleep before someone puts me to bed —  _ yawn  _ — by force."

"Perhaps," Nureyev replied, looking at Juno with fondness.

"Vespa said you shouldn't start trying to walk around until she says it's fine, but she's left the crutch here —" Juno pointed to the floor next to the bed — "just in case there's an emergency or something. She said she wanted to talk to you about some stuff, so I should probably go get her." He stood up, and lightly caressed the side of Nureyev's face. "Everything's going to be… well, it's not going to be  _ easy _ , but we're gonna work it out, 'kay?"

Nureyev nodded. "I love you. Now, darling, I do believe you should really go to sleep."

"Was gonna. Love you too." Juno gave him one last kiss, then left.

* * *

_ A few months later _

"So, how is it?" Buddy asked. Nureyev stopped walking back and forth as she spoke.

"It's still a little strange," he said, shifting his weight back and forth between his organic leg and his prosthetic leg. It was a relatively simple thing, technologically speaking. After hearing the full story regarding Juno's prosthetic eye, he understood the crew's anxieties on that front. But, at least for now, this one was perfectly adequate, and there was a certain elegance to the design. "But I'm sure I'll get used to it once the novelty has worn off."

"Vespa says not to be too proud to use the crutch to help if you need it."

"I know. She said."

"Are you alright, Pete?" It was a familiar question by now, one he'd been asked so many times he could probably say it in a pitch perfect imitation of Buddy's voice.

"I… am, actually."

"I hope you're not thinking of doing anything reckless to prove you still can."

"No, that's a side of Vespa I'd rather not see again. Besides, I don't particularly want to risk setting myself back to prove a point." Buddy smiled.

"I would much prefer that you didn't. I've been talking to Vespa about being able to send you on the next heist."

At that, there was a sudden glint in Nureyev's eye. "Oh?"

"I think if we try and keep you from participating in heists, you'll start trying to pull them off on your own, and that doesn't particularly benefit any of us."

"I'll try my best to be in a fit state for it," Nureyev said. Buddy nodded, and left him to his walking. 

There was an oddness to walking using his leg. He'd known there would be, from talking to Vespa and to the various specialists and physiotherapists they'd bribed or called in favours for on various planets they'd gone to. Muscle degradation, balance problems, phantom pain, he knew about it in theory, but in practice it was something else.

And yet.

If you'd told him what was going to happen months ago, even weeks ago, he would have been gripped by the kind of terror he hadn't felt in decades. But he was here now, and he knew he'd ultimately been fairly lucky. Most importantly, he hadn't died from infection or blood loss or a Dark Matters laser blast, and everything else seemed minor next to that.

He didn't know how long he'd been walking when the door opened and Juno walked in. 

"Hey. How is it?"

"Better than I expected."

"Good." Juno walked up to him, then groaned.

"Uuuuugh, I got used to you being sat down when we kissed." He put his arms around Nureyev's neck, as if to tug him down into a kiss.

"You can't just  _ pull me down _ , Juno, it's probably not good for me."

Juno took his arms back. Nureyev wrapped his around Juno's waist with a self-satisfied smile. "Smug asshole."

Nureyev leaned down and kissed him. "You love me really."

Juno rolled his eyes, smiling fondly in spite of his attempts not to. "Yeah, I do."

**Author's Note:**

> comment or ill cry


End file.
